Monday, November 19, 2018

WASHINGTON – One in five Army generals could not deploy in 2016 for medical reasons, according to data obtained by USA TODAY, a troubling trend in the military's readiness to fight that Defense Secretary Jim Mattis has vowed to fix.

Overdue medical and dental exams were the primary reasons for what the Army refers to as medical readiness in 2016. The medical readiness rate for generals has improved to nearly 85 percent, according to Brig. Gen. Omar Jones, the Army's top spokesman. Almost all generals, 97.4 percent, can now deploy after taking care of minor issues such as having updated blood tests and dental exams.

"The Army's top priority is readiness and soldiers are expected to be world-wide deployable to ensure our Army is ready to fight today and in the future," Jones said. "The data from 2016 does not reflect recent improvements in medical readiness for the Army as a whole and for the general officer corps specifically."

WNU Editor:In the past I would say that nothing would come out of it. Concessions will be made, and the defense budget will be bigger than the year before. But President Trump appears to want cuts, and many incoming Democrat Progressives are not interesting in compromising. Bottom line .... it is going to be an interesting 6 months.

WASHINGTON — In an interview being aired Sunday, President Donald Trump expresses regret for not visiting Arlington National Cemetery over Veterans’ Day weekend but said that he was prevented from doing so because he was “extremely busy on calls for the country.”

The comments — part of wide-ranging discussion with Fox News Sunday host Chris Wallace — come after extensive criticism of Trump’s handling of ceremonial duties during the holiday weekend.

Last week, Trump traveled to France to take part in events marking the 100th anniversary of World War I, but courted controversy when he skipped a ceremony at Aisne Marne American Cemetery on Saturday because of inclement weather.

WNU Editor: This is going to be a serious problem if President Trump continues to skip these events. I understand if he is tired or preoccupied with other issues, but this is where his staff must step in and make sure that he takes the time. The Presidency is about a lot of things, and optics is one of them.

From militarized atolls in the South China Sea to a growing Chinese navy looking increasingly aggressive, the head of the Indo-Pacom command lays out his needs and concerns.

HALIFAX: By turning reefs and atolls in the disputed South China Sea into fortified artificial islands, complete with anti-aircraft Surface-to-Air Missiles, China has transformed “what was a great wall of sand just three years ago [into] a great wall of SAMs,” the US commander in the Pacific said here today.

The militarization of the vital waterway for commercial shipping has been a major concern of Washington and its Asian neighbors for the past several years. But China’s increasingly aggressive challenges of American naval vessels operating in what the US and its allies consider international waters — including a near collision of two ships in September — raises the specter of a deadly accident that might escalate into war. And if a war breaks out, the island bases become a strategic southward extension of China’s land-based defense against US ships and planes, known in the trade as Anti-Access/Area Denial (A2/AD).

MALE (Reuters) - The Maldives’ new government will pull out of a free trade agreement (FTA) with China because it was a mistake for the tiny nation to strike such a pact with the world’s second biggest economy, the head of the largest party in the ruling alliance said.

It is the latest sign of a backlash against China in the Maldives, best-known for its luxury resorts on palm-fringed coral islands.

“The trade imbalance between China and the Maldives is so huge that nobody would think of an FTA between such parties,” said Mohamed Nasheed, the chief of the Maldivian Democratic Party, which leads the ruling federal alliance. “China is not buying anything from us. It is a one-way treaty.”

On Saturday, as he took office, the new President Ibrahim Mohamed Solih declared the state coffers have been “looted” and warned that the country was in financial difficulty after racking up debt with Chinese lenders.

KABUL (Reuters) - A three-day meeting between the Taliban and the U.S. special envoy for Afghanistan to pave the way for peace talks ended with no agreement, the militant group said a day after the diplomat declared a deadline of April 2019 to end a 17-year-long war.

Afghanistan’s security situation has worsened since NATO formally ended combat operations in 2014, as Taliban insurgents battle to reimpose strict Islamic law following their overthrow in 2001 at the hands of U.S.-led troops.

Leaders of the hardline Islamist group met U.S. special envoy Zalmay Khalilzad at their political headquarters in Qatar last week for the second time in the past month, said spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid.

ISLAMABAD — A new United Nations survey finds that opium cultivation in Afghanistan has decreased by 20 percent in 2018 compared to the previous year, citing a severe drought and falling prices of dry opium at the national level.

The total opium-poppy cultivation area decreased to 263,000 hectares, from 328,000 hectares estimated in 2017, but it was
still the second highest measurement for Afghanistan since the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) began monitoring in 1994.

The potential opium production decreased by 29 percent to 6,400 tons from an estimated 9,000 tons in 2017.

WNU Editor: The odd thing about the above video is that it was filmed by a stationary camera only 50 - 100 feet away, and it quickly found its way onto social media. Just a gut feeling, but it looks too perfect to me.

Deep divisions between the United States and China have derailed the APEC meeting in Port Moresby, with regional leaders failing to agree on a final communique for the first time in the summit's history.

The two regional powers clashed repeatedly over the language on trade in the final document, with Beijing angrily rejecting paragraphs that called for an overhaul of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) and warned against unfair trade tactics.

* Pictures show fragmented pieces of the submarine including the crushed hull
* The remains of the ARA San Juan submarine were found in the Atlantic on Friday
* Argentine navy lost contact with the submarine on November 15 last year
* Families of the 44 crew members who perished in the accident were informed

The crushed and imploded wreckage of an Argentine submarine that disappeared has been pictured lying on the seabed almost exactly a year after it went missing.

The ARA San Juan submarine was located in the Atlantic Ocean on Friday at a depth of 2,600 feet, crushing the last hopes for relatives of the 44 crew.

Pictures taken by an underwater robot show a propeller, the sub's bow with torpedo-launching tubes and an upper section of the vessel lying on the ocean floor.

On November 19, 1863, at the dedication of a military cemetery at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, during the American Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln delivers one of the most memorable speeches in American history. In just 272 words, Lincoln brilliantly and movingly reminded a war-weary public why the Union had to fight, and win, the Civil War.

The Battle of Gettysburg, fought some four months earlier, was the single bloodiest battle of the Civil War. Over the course of three days, more than 45,000 men were killed, injured, captured or went missing. The battle also proved to be the turning point of the war: General Robert E. Lee’s defeat and retreat from Gettysburg marked the last Confederate invasion of Northern territory and the beginning of the Southern army’s ultimate decline.

"The report notes that the United States now faces five rising challenges—China, Russia, Iran, North Korea, and transnational terrorism—yet has fewer military forces than at any time since the end of World War II."

The report of the National Defense Strategy Commission, released Wednesday, reaches conclusions with profound implications for U.S. national security. The report itself is a rarity for Washington, presenting bipartisan consensus that reflects hard-hitting views rather than watered-down, lowest-common-denominator mush.

In sixty-four pages of plain language, the commission paints an extraordinarily troubling picture of the state of U.S. national defenses, calling our present situation a “grave crisis” demanding “extraordinary urgency.” It’s a call we should heed.

WNU Editor: The argument is that the U.S. military does not have the funds and resources to meet current mission priorities and objectives. My issue .... and one that I have been voicing since the start of this blog almost 11 years ago .... is that the U.S. needs to have a debate on what are America's priorities and objectives, and then outline the funds and resources that it will need to meet them. Currently .... I see the U.S. being involved in too many regions and conflicts that are not vital to U.S. national security and long term interests, but an involvement that is costing the U.S. an enormous amount of money and resources and with no end in sight. This .... to put it bluntly .... cannot continue. Fortunately .... some are now starting this debate .... 2 Reports On The U.S. Military, 2 Different Messages (NPR).

Papua New Guinea's prime minister, Peter O'Neill, said that "the entire world is worried" about tensions between China and the U.S.

PORT MORESBY, Papua New Guinea — Vice President Mike Pence ended a week-long trip to the Indo-Pacific region on Sunday amid heightened tension between the U.S. and China and just two weeks before President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping are scheduled to hold formal talks amid the superpowers’ trade war.

On Sunday, the 21 member nations at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit left Papua New Guinea without agreeing on a final communique. A U.S. official involved in negotiations said China was the only nation to hold out on voting in favor of the proposed text.

“It’s a little concerning that it appears that China didn’t really have any intention in the end of reaching consensus,” the U.S. official said, rejecting reports that the breakdown in the meeting was centered on a rift between the U.S. and China.

“It was between 20 countries and China — not the United States and China,” the official added.

WNU Editor: The Western media was focused on U.S. - Chinese tensions during the APEC summit, but it is more than that. Many APEC nations are not pleased with China .... from Chinese territorial/boundary demands, to having much of the Chinese market closed to foreign imports while demanding free trade to .... that most APEC members now have their own issues with China that is raising Asian tensions.

* RAF Barnham is hidden away in west Suffolk and once held half the country's nuclear arsenal during Cold War
* The former site was built for maintenance of the Blue Danube, Britain's first free falling nuclear atomic bomb
* Some 200 personnel, ranging from scientists to military guards, were based at the isolated storage spot
* In present day, the disused watchtowers stand derelict and decaying overlooking a forest of autumn trees

Hidden between autumnal trees in an isolated location lies derelict buildings in what was one of Britain's most secret - and deadly - places.

Stunning aerial photos reveal a former nuclear weapons storage site once home to dozens of atomic bombs kept during the Cold War.

RAF Barnham is hidden away in a quiet corner of west Suffolk, where half of the country's nuclear arsenal was kept in the 1950s.

Nestled among foliage and at the end of a branch of footpaths are the entrances to the former storage facilities, known as hutches, for the fissile core of the nuclear weapons.

The sky lit up; 10,000ft above our eye level was a writhing molten mass. I was in awe.

I became aware of Operation Grapple in July 1956. There wasn’t a big Top Secret stamp on it. Everyone in the country had an idea that Britain was trying to become a nuclear power. I was a 22-year-old co-pilot in the RAF, just happy to be chosen for the mission.

My main role was to monitor the flight instruments to make sure the captain was flying correctly. We practised dummy drops for months, flying Valiant bombers from Wittering airbase on the Cambridgeshire/Northamptonshire border to a range over Orford Ness.

That could be part of the impetus behind the Pentagon's long-range plan for U.S. airpower, according to an analysis by the Congressional Research Service (CRS).

Is the Pentagon planning to refurbish F-15Es, F-16s and F-18s just in case the F-35 doesn't work out as planned?

That could be part of the impetus behind the Pentagon's long-range plan for U.S. airpower, according to an analysis by the Congressional Research Service (CRS).

Every year the Department of Defense puts out a thirty-year plan outlining its vision for the future course of American airpower. Usually it's a vague document.

But not this time. "The most recent 30-year aviation plan released in April 2018 is full of details on specific programs, including cancellations, life extensions, and new starts," writes Congressional Research Service analyst Jeremiah Gertler. "Some are explicit; others, between the lines."

WNU Editor: To me it makes sense to refurbish and modernize F-15Es, F-16s, F-18s, and other support aircraft. Not all conflicts will need to involve the F-35, and more importantly, these planes support aircraft are cheaper to maintain and operate.

USNS Comfort, moored off Colombia, will help patients as pressure builds on relationship between Washington and Caracas

A US navy hospital ship moored off Colombia has started giving free medical care to Venezuelan refugees, in a move likely to rile officials in Caracas who deny the existence of a humanitarian crisis in their own country – and have long been suspicious of the close relationship between Colombia and the US.

As well as treating Colombians, US medical teams aboard the USNS Comfort will attend to Venezuelan refugees, particularly at the ship’s next stop in Riohacha, a city near the border between the two countries.

Some 3 million Venezuelans have fled political turmoil and economic hardship at home, including 1 million who have taken shelter in Colombia, which has struggled to deal with the exodus.

WNU Editor: Three million Venezuelans have fled their country. And while the Venezuelan government is claiming that there is no crisis, I am sure there are many among those who have fled who need medical attention, and the deployment of the USNS Comfort is welcomed relief.

With Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin absent and leaders unable even to agree a joint statement, some critics are questioning whether the annual APEC summit is still worth the effort https://t.co/lEpyrTWqn5 by @AndrewBeatty

The U.S. faces a "crisis of national security" because its military supremacy has eroded drastically, leaving it likely unable to fight more than a single war at a time, the National Defense Strategy Commission says. https://t.co/AoZjckvFWU

About Me

I have been involved in numerous computer science projects since the 1980s, as well as developing numerous web projects since 1996.
These blogs are a summation of all the information that I read and catalog pertaining to the subjects that interest me.